The Twenty-ninth Civil Court of Santiago sentenced the treasury to pay compensation of $50,000,000 for moral damage for torture, to whom it was deputy medical director of the Sótero del Río Hospital in 1973.
This is Víctor Guillermo Hanna Ruz, who was arrested on September 12 of that year, by Carabineros. And five days later, he was transferred to the National Stadium by members of the Puente Alto PDI, where He remained locked up and beaten for a month.
The judge rejected the exceptions of comprehensive reparation, payment and prescription alleged by the treasury. This, after establishing that Hanna Ruz was the victim of a crime against humanity committed by agents of the State.
Doctor was illegally detained
“This is the case of a doctor who was illegitimately detained at his workplace – the Sótero del Río Hospital – by Carabineros officials, one day after the institutional breakdown, being arrested again a few days later by Investigative Police officials, while he was treating patients, and finally taken to the National Stadium, where he says he was detained for about a month (two months are indicated in the criminal record), during which time he would have been beaten and interrogated, suffering from hunger and cold,” details the failure.
And he adds that “it was a period of abuse, torment and misinformation, which has left a mark on this person, in line with the concept of torture of the Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture (CIPST) of 1985.”
As a result of this, the victim made the decision to leave the country with his family. “’This whole atmosphere of insecurity and fear, in addition to being out of work, since, having finished my training as an Internist, I had to be hired in a provincial main hospital, made us make the decision, in November 1973, to ask for asylum together with my family in the Italian Embassy (…)’, a situation that remained until 1983, when he decided to return to Chile,” the ruling adds.
